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Rachel\'s lips stopped moving. She was finished reading her story. About how her interesting childhood conveniently segued into her interesting college experience. Segued into her fascinating career. She had mulled over how each embellished hardship had taught her a beautiful lesson in life. And her days on the forensics team, her nights lurking in trendy cafes, had paid off. Her cadence, tone, enunciation, inflection were sleek. Up to standard. She said each word as everyone had expected. Dashes of wry, sardonic humor here; self-doubt there.
She secretly kept tabs on them. They lazily followed behind her, turning the pages. Irreverent. Anticipating their chance in the spotlight or mulling over the idiotic, vague suggestions they had received. They attempt to focus while their stomachs churned coffee and pastry soup. They wrote notes in margins. They demanded elaborations and explanations when she expected them to fill in the blanks. They chastised her excess details when she wanted to fill their minds with an accurate portrayal.
Rachel set her paper down. Placed her palms on the table and scooted her chair away from the table. A sign of resignation. She was done. She took a sip of water. Picked up her pen. Clenched her teeth. Remember, everyone has their own unique way of interpreting a story. She smiled She waited patiently for them to digest. To form an insightful, inoffensive, sensitive comment on her work.
There were compliments about imagery and dialogue. Develop this here. Chop that there. Get rid of the first paragraph. It\'s merely spinning wheels. Clinch the ending. What if this happened instead? Increase tension. So on. So forth. So it goes and so it went. She thanked every contributor politely, pretending to note their suggestions on her own copy. For the remainder of the time, she could no longer focus. She probably wouldn\'t touch this story again. Ever. She didn\'t have the attention span. The commitment. It was over. Done with. Dead to her. She neither liked it nor hated it. She had buried it in the typing ritual.
She walked out. Reminded herself of what she was supposed to feel at the end of these biweekly workshops. Rejuvenated. Inspired. She would have super-human abilities to describe an insignificant object. To craft stories far remote from her personal experience. To glean witty expressions from friends and family. She felt doubt concerning her abilities. Her words elicited neither joy nor disgust. They just sat on the page. She wondered why she had majored in creative writing. Why she had wasted her parents\' money. Equal opportunity for recognition in becoming a pop diva.
The classical writers weren\'t trained formally. Weren\'t churned out of institutions like a factory produces furniture. But she didn\'t feel like she had their genius. Their muse. The classical writers had other vocations that fed them material. What else could she do? How many unexplored adventures lurked inside a fast food restaurant or coffee depot?
Rachel walked home. Alone. Fresh for a hostile or intriguing rendevous. Fresh for a life-altering experience. Nothing. A still night. Her room was littered with magazines for writers. Publications that explained every nook and cranny. Obscurity. Art. Success. Business. Dedication. She felt bitter towards every splotch of ink and every page. She was suckered into these subscriptions. Victimized by their contests and classified ads.
She sat down at her desk. The light she provided herself was poor. She turned on the television. She needed to awaken the room. It had dozed off in her absence. She imagined how pathetic it was--a million aspiring writers reveling in their glory days in snazzy literary think tanks. What self-respecting factory worker or secretary would read such tripe? She idly scratched down her billionth beginning, with no idea of what to follow with: \"Rachel\'s lips stopped moving.\"